Giraffe MMA Cafe

Not giraffes

This cold has me flat on my back.

Smol. Also smol.

Not smol.

Cat is 20 years young. Joe Scarborough just emailed me to call this "the most cogent, most aware, best version of this cat, ever, and f*** you if you disagree."

Bear and cub.

Puppy needs to calm the hell down.

Fetch the stick.

Sheep does not go easy on the baby. Head-butts will be given freely to all.

On to the giraffe MMA.

Sparring by male giraffes has been commonly reported since its first description in 1958 and is believed to play a role in establishing male dominance hierarchies. However, despite being often documented, quantitative investigations of sparring behaviour are currently lacking. Here, we investigate the factors affecting the frequency, duration and intensity of sparring bouts in a population of giraffes Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa living on a private fenced reserve in Limpopo, South Africa. We show that sparring bouts were most frequently observed in young adults, and between males that were more evenly matched in size. Sparring bouts between males of similar body size were also characterised by being of high intensity and of short duration. Taken together, these results support the suggestion that sparring functions principally to provide maturing males a means of testing their competitive ability without escalating to full-scale fights. Additionally, mature bulls intervened on young adults possibly to disable any winner effect achieved by the latter, with the most dominant bull being responsible for the majority of interventions. For the first time, we also show that individuals displayed strong laterality when engaged in sparring: individuals consistently preferred delivering blows from either their left or right side, and these preferences dictated the orientation of sparring bouts (whether head-to-head or head-to-tail).

First, some low-intensity neck wrestling, or "necking."

Below, giraffes "sparring" by using their heads like weighted whips to pound each other.

I did not know this.

Another giraffe fight:

Two people on twitter confirmed that giraffes do fight by using their heads a flails.

Another great giraffe combat.

This giraffe fight is narrated by National Geographic. The fight ends with a knockout. One giraffe clocks the other so hard on the head to give him a concussion and drop him.

Giraffe rescue:

Just so you don't think giraffes are bloodthirsty monsters:

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:10 PM

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